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Citation
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Lemke AW, Davis EB, Voytenko VL, Cowden RG, Chen ZJ, McConnell JM, Pargament KI, Phillips KP, Marseilles R, Wolff RP. J. Affect. Disord. Rep. 2023; 14: e100640. |
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Abstract
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Background
Initial empirical evidence links religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles to suicide ideation. However, few longitudinal studies have examined the temporal associations of R/S struggles and suicide ideation, and none have focused on treatment-seeking individuals. This study addresses these gaps.
Methods
We assessed suicide ideation and six subtypes of R/S struggles in a sample of adult psychiatric outpatients (N = 120) at their initial psychiatry appointment (T1), 6-month follow-up (T2), and 12-month follow-up (T3). Following the analytic template for outcome-wide longitudinal designs, separate linear regression models tested the association of (a) T2 R/S struggle subtypes with T3 suicide ideation and (b) T2 suicide ideation with T3 R/S struggle subtypes. All models adjusted for salient demographics, organizational and nonorganizational religiousness, depression symptoms, T1 suicide ideation, and prior values of all six R/S struggle subtypes.
Results
Robust evidence supported a positive bidirectional temporal association between suicide ideation and ultimate-meaning R/S struggles, but not other R/S struggle subtypes.
Limitations
We recruited a relatively small sample that was geographically, racially, and socioeconomically homogenous. We also relied solely on self-report data.
Conclusions
Findings highlight the importance both of assessing ultimate-meaning R/S struggles as part of suicide risk assessment and of using clinical interventions that nurture adult psychiatric patients' sense of ultimate meaning.
Language: en |